


Acapulco (Reprise)

by JaineyBaby, timetospy



Series: la Vie en Rose [6]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies), SPECTRE (2015), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Gen, Introspection, James is such a tool, Madeleine POV, incompatible people, relationship dynamics, shitty ways to break up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-14
Updated: 2016-06-14
Packaged: 2018-07-14 23:12:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7194746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JaineyBaby/pseuds/JaineyBaby, https://archiveofourown.org/users/timetospy/pseuds/timetospy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Madeleine frowned.  She turned and re-entered the bedroom, stopping at the dresser to retrieve her mobile. As she reached for it, a small slip of paper caught her eye. It was tucked underneath the vase filled with day old flowers, a routine she had adopted in futility to inject some kind of joy into the room that had become their battleground.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Acapulco (Reprise)

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you, as always, to my co-author, beta, editor, and amazing friend [jordankaine](http://www.jordankaine.tumblr.com), without whom this series would not be what it is.
> 
> This fic is part of the La Vie en Rose series, and you should probably read [this](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5248673) first, although this fic does stand alone rather well.

_ February 2016 _

 

She blinked awake to an empty bed. That wasn’t anything new, of course, it’d been that way for a fortnight, at least. James would be standing on the beach, watching the waves crash against the sand, staring at something she couldn’t see, wrestling with demons he wouldn’t relinquish. The first time, she’d brought him a mug of coffee, pressed it into his chilled hands, and he’d wrapped an arm around her shoulders. He’d said ‘good morning.’ But it quickly descended to finding him with a tumbler of scotch dangling from his fingers, a cold stare instead of a warm embrace, and silence. It ate at the pit of Madeleine’s stomach.

She pulled on a dressing gown and padded out the onto the lanai. The cream gauze curtains billowed in the breeze, the air was saturated with rain that had refused to fall, clinging to the horizon with a filmy pewter grey that held no clouds and relief from the stifling humidity. Half a dozen gulls screeched and dove at something small and dark that had washed up on shore.

James was not on the beach. 

Madeleine frowned.  She turned and re-entered the bedroom, stopping at the dresser to retrieve her mobile. As she reached for it, a small slip of paper caught her eye. It was tucked underneath the vase filled with day old flowers, a routine she had adopted in futility to inject some kind of joy into the room that had become their battleground. The tide of victory had ebbed long ago, and as they settled around each other, their edges grated instead of meshed, irritating in ways that opened old wounds instead of healing them.

She had watched James slide away, inch by excruciating inch, until it became a landslide and the man she thought she could save had become a shell of himself, drowning in his own thoughts. She’d tried to draw him out in every way she knew, but every time she tried to reach out he pulled away, the wall between them growing ever higher. 

She pulled the paper out from under the glass, but she could already guess what it said. She unfolded it and scanned the scant words, confirming her suspicions.

_ Madeleine - I can’t. I’m sorry. J _

She took a deep, steadying breath, then tucked the note back under the vase. She’d known this was coming. She’d known it even before James had suggested leaving his half-empty flat in London. And this dreamlike existence that flowed in and around her like fog was just marking time, endless waiting for the other shoe to drop. They filled the moments as they came, but it was not fulfilling.

The first tear slid down her cheek and landed on the collar of her dressing gown, staining the peach silk a deep, muddy grey. The slow crumbling of whatever had passed for love between them had been so much worse, a million tiny cuts across her heart instead of one swift stab. There was nothing left to cling to, now, and she found the weightlessness of falling a kind of liberation.

Relief settled over her, wrapping her sadness up inside so that it felt like pressing into an old bruise to see if it did indeed still ache. It did, but not as much as it perhaps should have. 

She should be angry. She had every right. She should rage at the way he left, should curse him for shutting her out. But the anger would not come, and it dawned on her that she’d been forcing herself, as well. They’d both, for their own reasons, latched on to the single life preserver on a sinking ship, only to realize it was an anchor.

She had been drowning in her past, and he in his, for more years than either cared admit to. But their pasts were convergent, not complementary. Madeleine sniffed and wiped at her eyes. James could have never left that life behind him, not completely. 

And could she really have been happy with a man like that, anyway? A man so like her father? He’d thrown the gun away, but it was a token gesture. His hand still reached for it in the night as the house settled around them, he still felt at the small of his back for the press of steel against his spine, disappointment in his eyes when he found it missing. The motions made the breath catch in the back of her throat, gooseflesh rise on her arms. The paranoia that had been drilled into her, the second-guessing, the suspicion. She understood it, but she wanted to be free of it. That’s what all this had been for - to be free of the shadow hanging over her. But James hadn’t been the light she was seeking. That wasn’t his fault, though. She could blame him, if she wanted, but it wasn’t his fault. They were both victims of circumstance in more ways than one.

No, she was not angry over this. It would ache for a while, as all endings did, but it would not burn her. In the end, it had been inevitable.

She tied the dressing gown around her waist and slipped out to the kitchen. There were still three weeks left on their rental, and she would make good use of them. She would find the sunlight she longed for, she would create it, and she would allow James to fade away into obscurity.

The coffee pot was an ancient percolator, the chrome finish stained from decades of strong coffee dripping from the spout. It had a finicky cord that no matter how many times she tried to fix it, still had to be coiled just so behind the machine for it to turn on. She smiled to herself as she thought about actually being able to bin the damn thing and replace it with a drip brewer that she didn’t have to sweet-talk into working.

She’d go that very morning. It would be cathartic.

As she wiggled the switch in a frustrated attempt to figure out why the pot wouldn’t turn on this morning, there was a knock on the front door.

She frowned. In all the weeks they’d lived here, never once had there been a knock on her door that she wasn’t expecting. Her instincts flared to life, setting the skin on the back of her neck crawling. She approached the window that looked out onto the porch and lifted the curtain aside just enough to peer at the door.

A very slender, very nervous man stared hard at the middle of the front door. It was that floppy-haired boffin James had met with after nearly getting her killed, she was sure of it, although he was looking a bit worse for wear at the moment. 

What on earth was he doing here?

**Author's Note:**

> My blog for this fandom (and a couple others) is [here](http://www.timetospy.tumblr.com). Feel free to drop by, send me a message, whatever!


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